Unfiltered: The Sweetheart's Savage Secret

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Smash! My phone slammed against the hardwood floor, the screen shattering instantly.

I was screwed.

Just seconds ago, I forgot to end my live stream, and millions of viewers got a front-row seat to my private chat logs. My painstakingly crafted innocent sweet girl persona was ripped to shreds.

[Is Idol Boy B a narcissistic idiot!? Who the hell wants to fake a showmance with him!? Soaking in nauseating, cheap cologne, he can't even twist off a water bottle cap. My biceps are harder than his!]

[Holden's lips look so damn kissable.]

[I am so done with Superstar C. He's taken lip-syncing to a whole new level! And I, Blair, the industry's literal songbird, actually have to fake-sing right along with him!]

[When Holden's lips pressed against mine, it literally made my legs go weak. That electric touch was so damn addictive!]

[So you really do laugh out loud when you're this pissed. Must be nice having all that star power! No need to memorize lines, just stare intensely. He opens his mouth, and the entire set hears A-lister A counting numbers instead of delivering actual dialogue.]

[What kind of spoiled brat bullshit is this!? I busted my ass memorizing my lines all night, and they just delete them on a whim!? Psychopaths!!!]

[Even now, I still remember exactly what Holden tastes like!!!]

In barely ten minutes, my massive screw-up hijacked every single trending topic online.

[Trending Number 1: Exactly how soft are Holden's lips, and what do they taste like?]

Chapter 1

The agency deliberately engineered this saccharine sweet-girl persona for me. I maintained it so flawlessly that I got ripped to shreds in the comments every single time I stepped in front of a camera. One media outlet even wrote:

[If you tossed Blair into the Atlantic Ocean, the entire East Coast would be drinking toxic sweet tea for a year.]

I had just wrapped up filming for a music variety show right as the internet blasted me to the top of the trending charts for the millionth time over my fake-sweet remarks. The second I hit the dressing room, I whipped out my phone and started relentlessly venting to my best friend. I failed to notice the camera right behind me, its recording light still blinking away. Naturally, every single word of my ruthless rant got broadcasted live to the entire world.

Which meant my secret burner account got exposed right along with it.

In less than ten minutes, millions of viewers flooded my burner page. My phone buzzed with frantic texts from my manager. My neck snapped back. I locked eyes with the glowing green light on the camera lens.

Clatter. The phone slipped from my grip and bounced off the floor. Only one thought echoed in my skull.

I am so dead.

My burner account posts read like a deranged sweetheart wielding a Gatling gun. Not a single word matched my innocent persona, and the content was wilder than the biggest Hollywood scandals. The contrast was massive. A total two-faced disaster.

Snapping back to reality, I chugged half a glass of ice water. Swearing through gritted teeth, my trembling hands frantically hammered the delete button. I viciously clicked away, mourning the absolute death of my entertainment career.

But the internet moves faster than a 5G connection. Before I even finished scrubbing my feed, screenshots of my explosive rants had already infected every corner of social media.

Just as my lungs tightened over my pitch-black future, my manager dropped the ultimate ultimatum:

[Blair! If you want to tank your own career, fine, but don't drag Holden down with you!]

[The agency is terminating your contract!]

A suffocating weight crashed down on my chest. I hastily tapped the image she attacheda real-time screenshot of the trending charts. It sat firmly at the number one spot, stamped with a massive red [BREAKING] tag.

[Exactly how soft are Holden's lips, and what do they taste like?]

All the strength drained from my fingers. The phone clattered against the floorboards a second time. The blood entirely drained from my face.

It was over.

The fact that I had been secretly crushing on Holdenthe A-list movie starfor ten whole years was officially out in the open.

Chapter 2

Pure dumb luck landed me the role of Holden's unforgettable first love in his latest project. The screen time was barely a blip, but the physical intimacy was intense. Holden and Peyton were the internet's ultimate "it" couple because of that show, so a notoriously canceled, two-faced D-lister like me was completely ignored.

When we were shooting those scenes, his husky panting and aggressively predatory stares sent literal fire through my veins. I barely kept it together. All those secret, knee-weakening thrills and the absolute wild filth running through my head? I couldn't breathe a word of it out loud.

I could only dump my unhinged thirst onto my burner account and scream about it to my best friend.

But then one little comment I made on set leaked: "Holden is just such an amazing actor, he totally pulled me in. I guess I got a little carried away."

That classic pick-me remark got me absolutely slaughtered by his psychotic shippers. The studio buckled under the massive backlash and slashed my already pathetic screen time to almost zero.

I couldn't care less about the internet trolls. But after wrapping those scenes with Holden, I genuinely couldn't get his mouth out of my head. That's exactly why I kept obsessing over it on my burner account. His lips were just that damn good.

What I never saw coming was my private, unapologetic thirst being dragged out into the blinding daylight.

It felt exactly like taking a dump in the middle of Times Square.

The trending hashtag was instantly buried under an avalanche of comments. Nine out of ten were ripping me to shreds, and the tenth was just a troll throwing gasoline on the fire.

[Has Blair literally never seen a man before? Fantasizing this hard over a staged kiss?]

[I mean, honestly a kiss from a man like Holden? I'd be obsessing over that for the rest of my life.]

[What absolute trash behavior. Does Blair just mentally undress every single co-star she works with?]

[I don't even follow celebrity drama, but this makes me physically sick. It feels like Holden got totally violated.]

[I can't even imagine what Holden is thinking right now. He's going to have severe PTSD next time he films a kissing scene.]

[My poor baby must be violently disgusted by that fake, two-faced bitch Blair!]

I brushed off the vicious insults like dust, but reading that last comment felt like a physical punch to the throat. My airway constricted. They were right.

Once Holden saw what I'd posted, he would be absolutely repulsed by me.

The sterile silence of the room shattered as my phone buzzed sharply against my palm. The screen lit up. Caller ID: Holden. My heart slammed against my ribs.

I flipped the device face-down and shoved it to the far edge of the mattress. You have got to be kidding me. There was zero chance I could face him right now.

Desperate to protect Holden's untouchable reputation from my radioactive fallout, the agency and my manager went scorched-earth on the trending topics. Meanwhile, my assistant unceremoniously dumped me at a hotel, locking me down with strict orders not to step a single foot out the door until the absolute hellfire blew over.

My manager hijacked my verified account to post an emergency PR statement, aggressively denying the agency had any knowledge of my burner. As for the leaked audio with my best friend? That permanently nailed my coffin shut as a manipulative psycho.

Thanks to their ruthless PR maneuvering, the initial firestorm started burning out after the golden forty-eight-hour window. The agency's cutthroat tactics shielded both them and Holden from taking any real damage.

I was the only casualty. My already garbage reputation was dragged through the mud and pulverized.

I spent days trapped in that sterile hotel room, juggling the brutal legal threats of my contract termination while mechanically fulfilling my remaining scheduled gigs. But beneath it all, the suffocating anxiety over what Holden thought of me gnawed at my insides.

The relentless mental whiplash left me with a splitting migraine, my chest tight, and my hands constantly shaking from pure, unadulterated exhaustion.

Chapter 3

After suffocating in that sterile hotel room for an entire week, I finally dragged myself out at dawn for a scheduled shoot. My phone screen was a glowing nightmaredozens of missed calls and hundreds of unread texts, all from Holden. My stomach twisted. I didn't dare tap open a single one.

I just wanted to crawl under a rock and delay the inevitable collision for as long as humanly possible.

But today's taping was specifically to promote the show Holden and I worked on. No matter how terrified I was to face him, the collision was happening today. The ink was dry on the contract, and there was no way I was paying those astronomical breach-of-contract fees.

But when I stepped into the dim, echoey hotel parking garage, the ride waiting for me wasn't a standard company van.

"Hey is this ultra-luxury Maybach the company's designated death ride to ship me off to some perverted Hollywood heavyweight's bed?" I pointed at the slick black car, my spine snapping totally rigid.

My manager rolled her eyes hard enough to see her own brain. Ignoring my panic, she just shoved me toward the open door. I desperately clawed at the concrete pillar next to me, refusing to budge. I had just nuked my career last week.

I was literally in the middle of a brutal contract termination war with the agency. Why the hell would they send a ride like this?

Alarm bells shrieked in my head. A montage of every filthy industry rumor flashed behind my eyes.

"Look, we've known each other for years. If there's no love, there's at least some basic human decency, right? You can't just watch me flush the rest of my life down the toilet!" I pleaded.

"Shut your mouth, Blair. If you acted this dramatically on set, you'd be a global A-lister by now!" she snapped. "Cut the crap. We're running late. Get in the damn car."

"I have massive trust issues, and this screams trap. How about we just ride Citibikes to the studio?" I stared at my manager with wide, panicked eyes, my voice pitching into a hysterical squeak.

Before my manager could scream at me again, the heavy car door smoothly slid open on its own.

My frantic flailing instantly froze. I crashed straight into Holden's impossibly gentle smile.

Before I could duck my head, my eyes instinctively zeroed in on his lips. He wasn't wearing any stage makeup today. They were his natural shadea healthy, flush pink that looked criminally soft.

"Holden" my voice cracked.

"Get in first. It's my car." Holden extended a perfectly sculpted hand toward me.

Holy shit. There was absolutely no way I was touching that hand.

The AC inside the Maybach was blasting freezing air, but a sudden, suffocating heat flared under my skin.

"Holden" I mumbled, staring hard at the leather seat.

"You don't have to be so tense. Just talk to me like you used to." His smooth, low baritone washed over the frantic beating of my heart.

He used to be my mom's student. Her absolute favorite, actually. He was the undisputed king of the campus from the second he enrolled. I had just moved back to the States for my freshman year of high school, and the very first time I laid eyes on this ridiculously gorgeous senior, I was totally a goner.

My mom was his homeroom teacher for three years, and she also taught him AP Art History. Sometimes, when he came over to our house to study, my mom would make him stay for dinner and conveniently force him to tutor me. But back then, we barely exchanged two words.

Mostly because he had this untouchable, ice-cold vibe, and my massive, agonizing crush made my palms sweat every time he was in the same room. I was way too terrified to ever strike up a conversation.

Which was hilarious, because naturally, I was the exact opposite of quiet. My mom even roasted me right in front of him once: "Holden's the only one who can keep this little firecracker in check. She spent a few years living overseas with her dad, and now her attitude is completely out of control."

My dear, sweet mother was oblivious to the fact that her sixteen-year-old daughter was intensely, painfully hormonal over her star pupil!

Chapter 4

He was two years older than me. Back in high school, I used to look up to him, but after graduation, he shipped off to an out-of-state college. Then he blew up in Hollywood, and I barely saw him once every few years. The distance between us just naturally grew.

But he stayed incredibly close with my mom. She always bragged that Holden would drop by to visit her whenever he had downtime. It just never lined up for us to cross paths. I was always either stuck in class or buried in work.

"Holden I'm really sorry for dragging you into this massive mess."

Holden stared hard at me, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion.

He had been slightly nearsighted since high school, but his eyes were too sensitive for contacts. Once he hit A-list status, his agency banned him from wearing glasses in public to protect his heartthrob image. So, whenever he talked to someone, he unconsciously leaned in, locking onto you with this intense, fiercely devoted gaze.

But as one of Hollywood's top actresses once famously joked: "When a leading man stares at you like that, he could be looking at a fire hydrant and it would still look like true love."

His gaze swept over my face like a live wire. I viciously pinched my own thigh, forcing my eyes to snap away from his razor-sharp jawline. There was no way I was going to let myself act like some delusional, pathetic fangirl.

"I mean the whole Twitter disaster." I stammered.

"Oh, that." He let out a low chuckle, tapping his phone screen. "I've been calling you non-stop since the night it dropped. Why didn't you pick up? You didn't even text back."

"You're probably not going to believe this, but my phone literally spontaneously combusted."

He arched an eyebrow. Clearly, he didn't buy a single word of that garbage excuse.

I opened my mouth to defend my terrible lie, but the Maybach slammed on the brakes. I pitched forward, bracing for impact.

Holden moved with lethal speed. His arm hooked around my waist, yanking me back against the leather seat. I was wearing a cutout dress today. His massive palm clamped directly onto my bare skin.

The blistering heat radiating from his hand sent a sharp jolt straight down my spine.

My breath caught. I scrambled backward, frantically ripping myself out of his grip.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice dropping an octave.

I shook my head so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. My face burned like a furnace. Thank God my makeup artist had practically caked me in foundation this morning to hide my zombie-like complexion. The heavy layer of product was the only thing masking my blazing blush right now.

The driver glanced at the rearview mirror, looking incredibly stressed. From the passenger seat, Holden's manager twisted around with an apologetic smile. "Peyton just blocked the car. She wants to ride with us."

Today's taping was a massive, top-tier promotional event. The entire main cast was supposed to be there. We were literally less than ten minutes away from the studio, and Peyton had her own luxury ride.

But she was obsessed with milking this fake showmance with Holden. She specifically ditched her car here and leaked the location to her crazed fans. The street was already swarming with paparazzi and screaming teenagers.

"I explicitly said absolutely not before we left." Holden was legendary in Hollywood for his unbreakable, ice-cold composure, but right now, his jaw ticked with barely suppressed fury.

"I know, but you know how Peyton gets" The manager grimaced, clearly walking on eggshells. "Besides, it's just playing into the promo strategy. Once this press tour is over, we'll permanently cut off her access."

While throwing out excuses, the manager hit the unlock button. The heavy door clicked open.

Peyton's perfectly contoured face popped into the frame. But the second her eyes locked onto me sitting in the back seat, her sickeningly sweet smile instantly curdled.

"What the hell are you doing in here!?" she shrieked.

She purposefully shifted her body as she climbed in, leaving the door wide open just long enough to expose me to the blinding flashbulbs outside. What she didn't realize was that she also exposed Holden's absolutely murderous expression to the cameras.

Since I was already taking up the middle, Peyton was forced to slide into the far back. The air in the car instantly turned toxic.

The moment her designer heels hit the floor mats, she aggressively launched into conversation with Holden, acting like I didn't even exist.

Chapter 5

"I'm so nervous today. It's been forever since I've seen such a massive turnout," Peyton said.

Holden stared blankly out the window. "It's not your first variety show. Blair is the one who should be nervous."

His casual use of my name made everyone in the car freeze. Peyton recovered quickly, shooting me a sideways glare. "True. After all, she just made a massive fool of herself."

"Finally clawing her way onto an A-list show, of course she's terrified. Watch out, the haters might actually track you down in real life to scream at you."

"Oh, sweetheart, what exactly do you mean by that? Does watching me crash and burn finally satisfy your jealous little heart?" I replied sweetly.

"You love playing the sweet angel for the cameras. Why get lazy and drop the act now?" Peyton scoffed.

I blinked my wide, innocent eyes at Peyton, spitting out the most direct insults in the sweetest tone imaginable. Over the years, I had gotten perfectly comfortable playing the two-faced mean girl just to make people sick. The driver nearly choked on a laugh, his hands slipping on the wheel so hard he almost sent us careening into the median.

Even Holden's terrifyingly strict manager let out an audible snort.

"Blair! What the hell is that supposed to mean!? Who are you calling jealous!?" Peyton's face flared an ugly, splotchy red. Clearly, her foundation wasn't nearly as thick as mine, and her concealer was putting in zero work.

"Holden, don't you think women like her are incredibly fake?" I asked, turning to him.

He offered a careless shrug. "Blair isn't wrong. What are you gloating about? You really that desperate to see her get ripped apart?"

There was zero chance Peyton would admit to that. She snapped her mouth shut, practically radiating fury. The red flush crept all the way up her neck.

"Brat." Seeing the absolute nuisance finally shut up, Holden reached over and ruffled the top of my hair.

A massive heatwave detonated across my face.

That was insanely, illegally affectionate!

Thank God we finally pulled up to the studio. The suffocatingly weird tension in the car was finally over. My manager had already gone to war with the production team, securing an ironclad guarantee that they wouldn't breathe a word about the Twitter meltdown during the taping. But the way the crew looked at me was undeniably strange.

Still, this was Hollywood. Faking a polite smile was a basic survival skill. Even though I could feel their judging stares burning holes in my back, no one actively tried to humiliate me on set.

According to the pre-show script, Holden and Peyton were supposed to execute a ton of overly intimate interactions. But the second the cameras rolled, he completely blindsided every single person in the room.

During the partner selection segment, Holden walked straight past Peyton, stopped directly in front of me, and chose me without a single second of hesitation.

The entire studio plunged into dead silence, instantly followed by a vicious wave of boos and curses from the live audience.

This was supposed to be a sickeningly sweet PR stunt for the show's main couple. Instead, he flipped the script into a scandalous, unresolved tension narrative between the male lead and his unforgettable first love. What shocked everyone even more was our terrifyingly flawless chemistry. No matter what trivia question they threw at us during the games, we fired back the correct answers instantly.

Taking advantage of a brief break between games, Holden leaned in close.

"You're a lot smarter than you were in high school," he murmured. His warm breath sprayed directly against my earlobe, carrying a crisp scent of mint and understated cedar, instantly sucking every ounce of oxygen out of the room.

My heart went into overdrive. I instinctively whipped my head around. My nose brushed directly against his. Our eyes locked.

He was way too close!

I scrambled backward, putting a massive foot of space between us. A fierce, dark red flush instantly swallowed the tips of Holden's ears.

Since Peyton got brutally rejected by the leading man, she was forced to pair up with the second male lead. She filmed the entire segment with a thunderous scowl, radiating toxic energy and aggressively failing to answer a single question right. The second the game ended, she just stood in the middle of the stage and burst into furious, pathetic tears.

The host clearly never prepped for a full-blown meltdown and stood there paralyzed.

From the darkness off-stage, the director frantically signaled for us minor characters to exit, desperate to salvage the remaining runtime and focus the cameras strictly on the main cast.

Chapter 6

I followed the rest of the cast off the stage. I definitely didn't expect to run into A-lister C backstagehe was filming his show right next door. Yeah, the exact same guy I dragged for lip-syncing in that leaked audio with my best friend.

"Hey, Blair, let me ask you something. Who was that fake-singing guy you were whining about? Surely it couldn't have been me, right?" he leaned in, a sleazy, obnoxious smirk plastered across his face.

Thanks to my burner account getting exposed, my already garbage reputation was completely radioactive. Plus, that leaked chat log dropped more than a few massive industry bombs. I really didn't want to engage with him right now, but he relentlessly blocked my path.

"Honestly, you're a washed-up D-lister with a trashed reputation, and you totally deserve it. You've got a filthy mouth, zero spine, and all you do is throw mud from the shadows" He kept running his mouth, the insults getting uglier by the second. Taking my silence as submission, his smug smile widened.

My patience officially snapped.

"Yeah, I was talking about you. You're the lip-syncing fraud! You literally spend all day bragging about graduating from some elite international music conservatory. Calling yourself a pop pioneer with a voice kissed by angels."

"The best part is your delusional fans actually eat that garbage up. They call you the savior of the music industry. With an ego that massive, how are you not embarrassed to fake-sing every single track!?" I shouted.

Ever since I signed my contract, my manager had violently drilled it into my head: maintain the sweet-girl persona at all costs, never let the real me slip out. But right now? I was ready to burn the whole place down. What kind of narcissistic idiot purposely gets in my face to stroke his own ego?

If I didn't show him exactly why I was a walking firehazard, he'd really think I was just an easy target.

"You crank your backing tracks so loud it blows out the speakers. Your autotune is dialed up to a billion volts. Pikachu's thunderbolt couldn't even power your vocal processing! Even with your autotune maxed out, you still sound pitchy!"

"How do you shamelessly market yourself as some musical genius when you literally sound like a dying cat? Yeah, I was trashing you! Deal with it!" I fired off the entire rant without pausing for breath.

The air in the hallway instantly froze. The entire backstage area plunged into dead, horrified silence.

It wasn't until that exact, agonizing second that we both realized something completely horrific.

Neither of our clip-on mics were turned off.

Which meant every single word of my brutal smackdown had just been broadcast live directly into both studio audiences.

In other words.

My career was officially, irreversibly dead!

Even the top-tier, veteran hosts on both stages stood paralyzed, unequipped to salvage this catastrophic meltdown.

The guy standing across from me looked shell-shocked. He'd been treated like absolute royalty since the second he debuted. Being violently humbled to his face was clearly not something his system could process. His face instantly flushed an ugly, humiliated shade of dark purple.

His lips trembled for a few seconds before tears sprang to his eyes. Looking exactly like a pathetic clown whose vanity bubble had just been brutally popped, he clamped his hands over his face and fled down the hallway.

The taping finally wrapped.

Between Holden basically forcing me into the spotlight and completely eclipsing Peyton, the incredibly tense filming, and my explosive backstage rant, the entire day was a total, chaotic warzone. This time, Peyton didn't even try to force her way into Holden's ride. She stomped off to her own car, practically vibrating with rage. As for me?

I was genuinely terrified of getting jumped in the parking lot by Superstar C's rabid fanbase. I kept my head down, blending into the crew to sneak out through the back exit.

Of course, that absurdly massive Maybach glided to a smooth stop right in front of me.

The tinted window rolled down. Holden flashed a faint smile and waved me over.

A wave of pure dread crashed over me. Glancing around at the deeply curious stares from the lingering crew members, I scrambled into the back seat. The second my door clicked shut, the driver slammed on the gas and we tore out of the alley.

"It's fine. The internet outrage will blow over soon. The industry pumps out new scandals every single day. Yours is barely a blip," Holden offered smoothly, clearly noticing the absolute defeat radiating from my slumped shoulders.

Chapter 7

We had barely seen each other since his high school graduation. The last time was when I graduated, and he came over for dinner to celebrate my college acceptance. After that, we hadn't crossed paths for years.

"Honestly, that burner account sounds exactly like the real you. Your little meltdown today was pretty authentic, too," Holden said.

My head snapped toward Holden. He was absolutely certain I was the one behind that account!

"Look don't get the wrong idea. I've always just looked up to you like an older brother, like a role model. I absolutely wasn't fantasizing about you" I stammered, frantically trying to clear the air. I was terrified he'd think I was some creepy, obsessed stalker.

"So you didn't actually enjoy kissing me?"

His eyes narrowed into dark, dangerous slits. The physical distance between us vanished. The sudden drop in air pressure seized my lungs. I completely forgot how to breathe.

How the hell could he just ask that so bluntly